This comic, “How A Web Design Goes Straight To Hell,” is making the Twitter trending rounds this morning. Yes, some clients do not understand the value of well-reasoned design. Sure, interactions with that type of client are difficult, frustrating and, looking back, usually funny. But such views only serve to paint the designer as victim to the whims of an uneducated client. Designers are not victims. They are willing participants in the process. If the end result is unsuccessful they should share the responsibility.
A few notable quotes from the comic:
I actually had a client include their mother in the design process so she could provide feedback and criticism.
The inference here is that mothers are incapable of meaningful insight. What if the project was aimed at women?
After the 13th revision I fired the client.
Why did you let it go to thirteen revisions?
If you were an engineer designing the turbine of a commercial airplane, would they interfere then, I wonder?
A common complaint. “Would you tell your [lawyer, doctor, mechanic, etc.] how to do their job?” Of course not. While designers like to value their skills as equal to other professions, design is not as easily defined.
I do understand the comic exaggerates to make a facetious point. But having seen this point made repeatedly over the years, I think the message is less, “Clients suck; they need to change.” and more “Designers should do a better job communicating the value they provide.”
A partner in the New York design firm Pentagram, Michael Bierut describes the process, from conception in his notebooks to final execution, of five projects. I love his presentation style – humorous, straightforward. He makes some amazing work seem so simple to produce.
I’ve used Google Wave sparsely over the past two weeks and recently found one part of the experience noteworthy in it’s difference from current email conventions. Because it is “live” or instantaneous, when you are participating in a thread other folks can see what you are typing as you type it. A cool feature until you want to compose a message and don’t get it right the first time. For example, being the deliberate fellow I am, I sometimes rewrite a sentence or paragraph before sending an email. That process is now transparent (if the other thread participants are signed into Wave). So I find myself checking first to see if the participants are signed in. If not, I have the freedom of editing my work. If they are logged in I treat it more like instant messaging. I haven’t used Wave long enough or with a wide enough range of people to really get a feel for it, but I was struck by this new paradigm.
On Tuesday I listened remotely (love the VPN) to Intuit’s Social Ecosystem Summit. There, Caterina Fake gave an informal talk about both Flickr (of which she is a founder) and her new venture Hunch. I brought up hunch.com as I listened and was quickly hooked. As Fake explains, they use a model inspired by the site HotorNot where you are put in front of a stream of somewhat random multiple choice questions. Where Hunch differs is its use of the data collected. I can browse or search for a topic, answer a few related questions, and Hunch will suggest an answer or direction. Topics range from silly to serious and you can add your own as well. It’s an interesting, engaging take on the social, human-powered search engine.
